Save Me From Myself
by loveintheimpala
Summary: Dean is on the rack, he tortures souls and doesn't think twice about it. He's too far gone to care... Or is he? What does he do when they place someone there he knows? Can she pull him back?
1. When The Tortured Meets The Innocent

**Save Me From Myself**

**Chapter One: Prequel: When The Tortured Meets The Innocent**

The first time that Dean saw Lacey down there he didn't recognise her.

The first time that he saw those fearful green eyes looking up at him he didn't see her.

The first time that he rose the blade in his left hand and allowed his familiar sadistic thoughts to take over he didn't notice.

He didn't really see who she was, he just saw through her, the same way he did with all of them.

He was too used to it to really look at her. He had seen them all before—old, young, men, women—it no longer mattered.

He had heard them all beg for their lives, he'd heard them all plead with him for compassion.

"_Please don't hurt me."_

"_I can't take anymore."_

"_Please stop."_

"_I'm begging you."_

He had heard it all in his time, half of the time he barely listened to it anymore.

Along with the anguished screams and tortured cries, it had all just become background noise to him.

But for the first time since he had raised a knife there he stopped. He stopped at the one word that slipped through the girl's chapped lips.

"Dean..."

It snapped him out of his thoughts, stopped the breath in his throat, the heart in his chest, it brought him crashing right back down into sanity. He was sober of the cruel and callous mentality he had become so accustomed to. At least, for a moment.

He hadn't heard anyone speak his name like that for a long while.

His hands shook at his sides, uncontrollable. There was something inside him, something dark and deep within his very soul that just wanted to tear apart flesh. He wanted to inflict pain, he wanted people to hurt, he wanted them to suffer. He wanted people to know the pain he had felt. After everything he had been through there, after everything they had put him through, he wanted to take back the control.

And, for the smallest second, he pictured himself making her scream. He could see himself hurting her, making her bleed, and he didn't care. But then those thoughts subsided.

Slowly, his eyes moved down to lock with hers. And he saw it all right there in her face—fear, anguish, distress, alarm—every emotion he knew he shouldn't be seeing in the face of his youngest sibling.

The knife slipped through his shaking fingers, and somehow, somewhere, the small sliver of humanity that still remained within him seemed to gain control once again. It was a feeling he hadn't experienced in a long time. Years. Decades. He didn't know anymore. He'd lost track.

"Lacey?" His voice cracked as he spoke her name, broken. "You're—"

No. She couldn't be. She couldn't be dead. It had to be some kind of a mind game. Alistair wasn't done screwing with him. Making him torture wasn't enough. He had to go one step further. Just to push him. But that was where Dean would draw the line.

He would have himself back on the rack before he raised a blade to the flesh of his own family.

He hadn't cared, he hadn't given it a second thought before, he hadn't wanted to—but that was too far. That was enough to make him pull back.

Whether she was real or not, he couldn't do it.

"Dean." she spoke his name again, her voice shaky, terrified. "What are you doing?"

Tears rolled down her dirty cheeks, her eyes pleaded up at him, he had never seen her look so afraid before. Of anything. It hurt to think that she was looking at him like that.

"Lacey." Dean shook his head and took a step back. She knew. His own sister had seen what he had become, she had seen what hell had made of him. "Oh god."

His hands wrapped in his own short hair, his breathing stopped, how had it gotten so bad? How had he allowed himself to become _that_? What was he doing? What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to know if it was her? Hell, did it even matter anymore? He'd lost track, he'd lost himself. He had forgotten who he was.

"Dean, please." Her small voice drew him back to her. "I know you can hear me." she pleaded. "Please."

Tears welled up in Dean's eyes, for the first time in years, as he looked down at her. Chains held down her wrists and ankles to the steel table beneath her, all covered in the blood of the previous souls that had been layed before him, completely at his mercy. Anyone else and she would have been screaming in agony by then, and that was when he truly realised just how fucked everything had gotten.

"It's okay," he whispered. His voice was barely audible. "It's gonna be okay, Lacey." His eyes lowered to hers. "I'm still here."


	2. This Is Temporary, Hell Is Eternal

**Save Me From Myself**

**Chapter Two: This Is Temporary, Hell Is Eternal**

Dean took a shaky step forwards and, with trembling hands, he released the chains confining his sister before him. She didn't move at all for a moment, didn't speak, didn't even breathe. She just lay there before him in shock, unable to function, looking as though she was going to throw up. There were tears shining in her eyes, clinging to her eyelashes as she tried to hold them back, rolling down the sides of her cheeks and dropping to the cool metal of the table beneath her when she couldn't manage to—he struggled to look at her. Seeing her in such a state hurt him.

Lacey looked up at him, unable to form a coherent thought. That was her brother, standing above her, hands and shirt covered in deep red blood that she knew didn't belong to him. All the time she had been down there in the pit, all the time she had spent being tortured, she had always thought somewhere in the back of her mind that the same thing was happening to him. She had thought somewhere in the deep, bloody corners of hell that her brother was experiencing the same anguish and horror that she had been.

But she had been wrong.

She couldn't have been more wrong.

What was happening to Dean was so, so much more harrowing.

Dean had changed. Something inside him had changed. He wasn't Dean anymore, at least, not there. Where he was now, there was a darkness to him that she could never have associated with him. She couldn't see him anymore, there was a vacant look behind his eyes—eyes that had once been so full of life and shimmering with mischeif—that was gone. There was nothing left within him, as though he had just checked out and left behind an empty body.

For all she knew, he could have. Because the man she was looking up at was no longer her brother.

And Dean could see that. He could see it in her eyes, he didn't know anymore what he looked like, he couldn't remember the last time he had seen his own reflection, but he knew by the look in her eyes it couldn't be good. She appeared as though she was looking up at a stranger, and that physically hurt him.

After a moment she seemed to compose herself, and somehow found the strength to push herself into a sitting position. She took a deep breath, fighting back the rising urge in her chest to be sick, and moved so she was sitting on the edge of the table, her legs hanging over the side and her eyes fixed on the dirty, damp stone floor.

Tentatively, Dean reached out, as though he was going to place a hand to her shoulder, even if it was just to check that she was really there, but she flinched away. She didn't even realise she had done it, it was completely involuntary, and she hated herself for doing it, but it happened before either of them managed to process the movement. His hand hovered there for the briefest second, as if in shock, before his face completely dropped. Her eyes slowly rose to him, and for a second she could've sworn he was going to cry.

"Lacey..." The name slipped passed his lips, it still didn't feel right, her name being spoken somewhere like that. It _wasn't_ right. He shook his head slowly, remorseful, and sighed. "I..."

But he stopped, because what was he supposed to say to her? How was he supposed to explain what he was doing, what he had been about to do to her? He couldn't apologise, that wouldn't cut it. There weren't enough apologies in the world to make what he had been doing alright. And he knew that. If she only knew the true extent of the pain he had inflicted upon other people, if she had known how it made him feel, how he enjoyed it... If she knew how he basked in the sounds of their screams, knowing he was doing it right... If she knew how he had laughed in their faces when they had begged him for mercy, the same way that he had once done, the same way he was sure she had done there... She would never look at him the same way again.

He was a broken man, and he knew that. He loathed himself for it. And so would she.

Lacey shook her head, as if to ask him not to try explaining. In all her life she had never seen her brother look so broken. She had never seen such a lifeless and shattered pain in his eyes. And that was enough for him, he turned away. He couldn't even face her anymore. He couldn't see that look in her eyes, he just couldn't. That wasn't the look a girl was supposed to have when she was looking up at her brother. She looked frightened, hurt, disturbed... But then there was sympathy, and sorrow, what he didn't deserve from her... He couldn't put into words the emotions in her eyes.

As he turned his back on her, she understood. She realised how damaged he had to be if he couldn't even bring himself to face her anymore. She hopped off the table and found the floor beneath her boots, taking a small step closer to him.

"Dean..." she whispered, and he stilled for a moment, tense. "Look at me."

For a second he did nothing, didn't even react. But then, he found some strength and turned to look at her, tears shining in his eyes, threatening to spill. Her heart dropped at the sight of him. Some ounce of humanity had returned to his eyes, he became a little more recognisable to her. But that only made it hurt more.

Her trembling hand reached up to him and her fingertips gently wiped away the tears from his cheek with the faintest of touches. He could see her eyes searching him, reading him like he was the most interesting thing she had ever seen before, and she shook her head.

"Wha the hell have they done to you?" she asked him, with such pain that he felt the lump in his throat grow enough to hurt.

Dean opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, he didn't have the words to answer her, because he didn't know. He shook his head, lost. "I—I'm sorry." he choked on his words, because that was enough. It was too much.

But before he could think to get anything more out, her arms wrapped around his neck and she pulled him towards her, crying softly against his shoulder. For a moment, he didn't react, he was frozen, because that—having someone there, having someone show him affection—was almost foreign to him now. He had forgotten what it was like to have someone touch him without the intention to harm him, he had forgotten what it was like to touch someone without intention to harm them. Slowly, he brought his arms up to wrap around her middle and dropped his forehead to her shoulder as he finally cracked.

As they stood there, in the middle of hell, and held onto each other for dear life, the thoughts lingered in his mind, and he couldn't silence them. Even if it had been for the smallest second, he had thought about hurting her. He had pictured himself making her scream, making her bleed. How could he even trust himself to be around her, what was she supposed to do if he cracked again? He was in hell, he had tortured, cut, ripped and sliced apart flesh. How could he risk it?

Lacey pulled back first, enough to look up at him, and found his eyes. "We're gonna get out of here, okay?" she told him, her voice now calm, steady. "We're gonna be okay."

Dean nodded, he didn't know which one of them she was trying to convince, but he knew that it wasn't true. The days in hell felt as though they went on forever, they always did, but that didn't mean they actually lasted forever. Eventually the day was going to change, and she was going to be ripped out of there, he would go back to being trapped in his own little hell, where he tortured the souls of the others down there without remorse—souls like hers. She would go back to being ripped to shreds by other demons, other broken humans whose souls had been warped by the years of unspeakable horrors down there.

It wasn't going to last forever. He knew that. She just didn't appear to have realised it yet. She had found her brother and so she thought things were okay again, but he knew better. Things weren't going to be okay. It was hell. No one escaped from hell. Ever.

So what was he really supposed to do?

She was crying for the brother she didn't know if she had lost or not, because he knew she didn't realise the true extent of the darkness inside him. But he was crying for the sister he already _knew_ he had lost.

He was holding onto the girl he never, ever expected he would see again after that moment. Once she was gone, she was gone. Almost forty years he had been down there, hundreds and thousands of souls he had tortured, she had been the first he had known, and he suspected the last. It could be another eternity before she was placed back onto his rack, and by then he knew there was good chance she would no longer be his little sister, because he knew something inside him was changing, and it wouldn't be much longer before he was no longer her big brother.

They needed a miracle.


	3. We're Back

**Save Me From Myself**

**Chapter Three: We're Back**

Turns out, Dean and Lacey Winchester didn't get that miracle they needed.

They didn't stay together, they didn't make it out or fight together—Dean had been right. The end of that day in hell had come and, like he had predicted all along, Lacey had been ripped right out of that room in the blink of an eye. Within seconds a new soul had been placed in front of him, crying and desperate and pleading.

But Dean hadn't heard it. For a long time he didn't hear anything. Dean became numb.

Somehow, things became even darker. Knowing that his sister was down there, knowing every time he picked up a blade and tore it through skin, the same thing was happening to her somewhere, it made it unbearable. More so. How was he supposed to carry on? Often, he found himself pondering the possibility of suicide in hell. But then he realised, that was the stage they wanted him at. Hell was supposed to be hell. And he had found it. He had found his true hell the day she had found him.

From the moment Lacey had disappeared, things had been different. Dean no longer cared. He tried to get through them faster, just praying for her to be placed back on his rack, because then, for at least one day, the two of them could escape torture.

And then, another few years passed by, all one horrific blur, and Dean opened his eyes to a blackness completely new to him. It was dark, stuffy, surprisingly heated—confining in a way that sent a wave of panic directly to the pit of his stomach. Instinctively, he reached out a hand in front of him, looking for something familiar he could take hold of, only to be met with a hardness. And that was when he realised, he was lying in a coffin.

That had been two hours ago, and how he drove down some lonely dirt road, the window open in some futile attempt to cool down the excruciating temperature of the stolen car he drove, or the impact of the sun glaring down through the window, burning the skin of his face and arms.

Somehow debating whether or not he was really back, Dean narrowed his eyes down the empty stretch of road ahead. He hadn't seen a single human being yet, nothing. He hadn't spoken to anyone, he hadn't had any contact with anyone or anything. And he was starting to get a little apprehensive, wondering where the hell he was.

But it was at that thought he noticed something else. There was another car driving towards him. Black, or maybe dark blue, he wasn't sure. Whoever it was, they were driving fast, with purpose. Deciding it had to be nothing, Dean ignored them, focusing on his own side of the road. And that thought held, up until the other car made a sudden jolt and came screeching to a halt across the middle of the road, blocking his path entirely. He had to slam down on the breaks to narrowly avoid crashing right into it.

Dean was ready to get out and yell, punch whoever the idiot who had nearly cost him his life square in the face. But the breath caught in his throat as his eyes fell to the girl who climbed out of the driver's side. She wore a white vest and black jeans, both covered in dirt the same way that his clothes were.

And then there was a grin on his face, because he hadn't expected to see her again. But it wasn't something that she returned. There was no happiness in her eyes. It was all fear and anger, everything he never thought he would see in the face of his sister as she looked to him. And that was when he was hit with the blinding sunlight reflected from the blade in her hand as she approached him.

"Lacey—" he began, ready to tell her that she didn't need to be scared, that it was really him, but he didn't get the chance to say more before she made a swing at him. He ducked back and narrowly avoided the attack but she just kept coming. She brought the knife down towards him again but he caught a firm grip of her wrist and pulled the knife from her with his other hand. Stepping back he held up his hands in surrender. Reluctantly, he brought the blade up to his arm and made a quick cut, enough to draw blood. "I'm not a shifter, I'm me." he told her, but she didn't look to be convinced. "Don't suppose you have any holy water on you?"

Lacey shook her head. "You?"

"Nothing." he muttered. "So, how about we just assume we're us until we find some?"

She watched him closely, it was too much of a coincidence them getting out of hell on the same day for it not to be him. He was covered in dirt, the same as she was, which probably meant that he, too, had climbed from his grave. Somewhere, she could just feel that it was her brother. And there looked no doubt in Dean's eyes that he was standing before his sister.

Slowly, she managed a nod. "Fine." she mumbled, but he wasn't sure she was convinced. Either that, or she didn't want to be convinced.

"Come on," he pressed, gesturing to the car she had left parked in the middle of the road. "Let's get out of here. I promise, we'll sort it out when we get..." He paused, because he didn't honestly know where they could go. He didn't even know where they were. "Somewhere."

Lacey gave another short nod and headed around to the passenger side of the car, as if on instinct expecting him to drive, and he didn't argue with her. He slipped behind the wheel and started the car, never uttering a word to her. He didn't know what to say. There was too much to say. He wanted to ask her the million questions that were swarming around in his head but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. And he had a feeling, neither could she.

Things were different than they usually were. It was like she was keeping as much distance from him as she could. She was pressed up against the side, either subconsciously or on purpose, he wasn't sure. But he wouldn't blame her. She cast occasional glances at him out of the corner of her eye as he started the car and continued on the way he had been driving before she had cut him off.

Nothing was said for a long moment before he cleared his throat. "Where were you heading, anyway?" he asked. It was too much of a coincidence for them to just crash into each other like that. Out of every road in every town in every state, they were both on that one. She had to be heading somewhere.

"Your grave." she muttered. "I crawled out of mine...I had to see if..." she trailed off, her voice shaky, gravelly as though she was loosing her voice. He closed his eyes for a moment, she had woken up in a coffin, the same as him, he hated to think about it.

But Dean said nothing to her. He couldn't. They drove in silence for a few miles, neither being brave enough to break it. Being honest, it wasn't the reunion he had expected. There had been no hugging, no tears, nothing. They were just sitting in silence, and he had a feeling that was because she wasn't completely sure it was him. She didn't want to throw herself into his arms in case he turned out to be something else. That was the smart move. But he really did believe he had his sister beside him. He couldn't think anything else, he wouldn't let himself think anything else. But she was wary, and he didn't blame her for that.

Another few miles passed by, still neither of them spoke. And, while Dean thought it was Lacey who didn't want to speak to him, Lacey thought the same thing about Dean. There was something comforting about his presence that just made her more and more confident that it was really him, that she had found her brother again, but she wasn't sure he believed that it was her. Something was holding him back. Maybe he just didn't want to trust her, not until they were both sure of what was going on. Or maybe it was something more. She didn't know. She didn't like to think.

But, as they finally found a highway, when Dean turned onto it and made some futile attempt to recognise it, he found his voice again. There was something that had been burning in the back of his mind since he had seen her that night in hell. And he was done wondering. "What happened to you?" he asked, glancing over at her for a moment, for the first time since he had started the car. "How'd you end up in hell?"

Lacey cleared her throat and looked down at her lap, she knew he wasn't going to like it. "Demon hunt went wrong." she shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

"Demon hunt?" he repeated, eyebrows raised. "And Sam? Is he...?" He didn't even want to say it, he didn't want to think about it. He couldn't be. He had to be alright.

"I don't know." she muttered, looking out of the side window, refusing to face him. "I haven't seen him since the night you went to hell, Dean. He bailed."

Dean's eyes went wide at that. "What?" That couldn't be right. He had told them to stick together, why would he bail on her? Why would he leave her alone like that? Why wasn't he watching her back? Why had she been taking demon hunts alone?

"I looked everywhere for him, I really did. So did Bobby." she sighed. "But he doesn't wanna be found. I'm sorry, Dean."

But that wasn't what was bothering him. Was she apologising because she thought he was mad at her for not finding him? Did she blame herself for not looking harder? Maybe she did. More than likely. But Dean knew, if Sam didn't want tracking down, it would be damn near impossible for anyone to find him.

"He bailed on you?" he asked her, it hadn't sunk in. He couldn't comprehend him doing that to his own sister. That didn't sound like Sam.

"Things were rough." Lacey reasoned, she didn't sound mad, just upset. "For all of us."

That was a conversation that he didn't want to get into. Not yet. Honestly, he just wanted to forget the entire thing. He wanted it all to go away. He wanted to forget.

As though she could read his mind, Lacey looked up at him, a softness in her eyes. "Do you, I mean..." She paused, as though unsure she wanted to ask. "Do you remember it? Hell?" Dean glanced over at her, and she could tell he was about to deny it, but he caught the look in her eyes, and he knew that she did. She remembered the torture she had been subjected to. She remembered how they had ripped her apart without mercy. He couldn't make her face those memories alone.

Slowly, Dean nodded. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, I remember."

Lacey shook her head. She had hoped he had been the lucky one, that maybe he would have been able to block everything out. She knew his memories had to be so much worse. He had been down there longer, and he had not only been tortured, he had been the one doing the torturing. She wasn't sure that there was anything worse than that to think about. It had to be tearing him up inside. In fact, she could see it tearing him up inside. She could see the pain behind his eyes as he thought back to the horrors of the pit. But there was something more. There was something other than hell praying on his mind. And she couldn't tell what.

Maybe she had done something. Maybe he was pissed that she had been down there in the first place. He always seemed to get mad when she got herself into trouble. She risked her life on a hunt and she knew she would go back to the motel to be yelled at by Dean for being reckless. He had always been the same. When she or Sam got in danger, he got mad. But she wasn't sure, because why hadn't he yelled? Why hadn't he told her he was angry? He hadn't even looked at her, not since they had left the side of the road almost two hours ago. He hadn't really spoken. Something was going on.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, looking at him warily. There was definitely something on his mind, she could tell from a mile away. But Dean didn't speak, he didn't even look away from the road. "Dean, you've barely even looked at me since we got in the car, what's the problem? Are you pissed at me or something?"

Dean huffed a laugh at the thought, always trying to blame herself, always assuming it was her who was in the wrong. She didn't get it. She didn't know. She didn't understand. How was he supposed to tell her? She would never look at him the same again, he knew that. She wouldn't forgive him. She wouldn't be able to stand his presence, and he wouldn't blame her. But he needed to tell her, she needed to know who he was. She needed to understand what he had become.

With a sigh he pulled the car over to the side of the road. He couldn't predict how she was going to react to what he was about to say, but he didn't imagine it would be good. And driving at the same time as making a confession like that was just pure suicide.

He climbed out of the car, closely followed by Lacey, and made his way around to lean against the hood, hands in the pockets of his jeans. She stood in front of him, her eyes narrowed slightly to see him through the harsh sunlight that shone down over them. There was a look in his eyes that she didn't like, it made her nervous.

"Lacey," he sighed, shaking his head at himself. "There was a minute back there...in hell...just the tiniest second..." He looked down at the ground between them, he couldn't tell her. He just couldn't.

"Dean." she pressed, stepping forwards slightly until she was right in front of him. Her eyes were fixed on his, understanding and kind, comforting. If only she knew. "Come on, it can't be that bad, right? Just, tell me what's wrong."

Dean sighed, defeated. "I wanted to do it, Lacey." he told her simply, guilt written all over his face. He could barely look her in the eyes. "I wanted to hurt you. Call it bloodlust or whatever you want...but that isn't who I am. I'm not here anymore. I'm not me."

Lacey stared at him for a long moment, watching him intently. She didn't know what to say. Her brother was telling her that he had wanted to torture her. How was she supposed to take that? She had been terrified of him, she had seen the danger in his eyes before he had realised who she was. He had been ready to hurt her, and a part of her had known that. But even after he had realised it was her, he had still wanted to do it. Was she supposed to hold that against him? She knew Dean. She knew the real Dean, the one who was standing there with tears in his eyes, as though he was waiting for her to turn and walk away from him. The Dean who had been down there in hell, the Dean who had been twisted enough that he had tortured, that wasn't her brother.

That Dean didn't matter to her anymore, because, as far as she were concerned, he had been left behind in hell. Until the moment Dean started tying down innocent people on earth and torturing them to death, that Dean was gone. He was in the pit, and he wasn't coming back. They were away from that whole nightmare. They had to put it behind them. For both of their sakes.

"Dean," she spoke softly. "It's okay." she whispered. They had to stick together, because they needed each other. Now more than ever before. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters." he snapped, and she knew the only person he was angry at now was himself. It wasn't her. "Lacey, I'm sorry." The unshed tears in his eyes shimmered with the reflected sunlight as he struggled to hold them back. "I'm so sorry. I—"

But before he could say anything else, Lacey stepped forwards, closing the distance between them, and wrapped her arms around his neck tightly. Somehow, that made Dean feel even worse. He didn't want her kindness, or her forgiveness, he didn't deserve it. He didn't understand it. But he didn't refuse it. His arms wrapped around her middle and his head rested to her shoulder as the tears slipped from his eyes. He could feel her body shaking slightly, and he realised, that was the first time either of them had hugged anyone since that night they had met in hell, that night that seemed to be so many years ago.

Everything was spoken in that one action that neither of them could say. There was an unspoken knowledge that everything was still okay, that they were still the same as they had been before everything had gone wrong and Dean had gone to hell. Nothing that had happened in that time mattered anymore, because they were out, and they were free. They had survived it all and made it out the other side. They were back. Everything else they could work out later. For now, they had each other.

"We'll be alright, Dean." she whispered, her voice shaking slightly with emotion. "Everything's gonna be fine. We're out. We're not going back."

Dean pulled back to look at her and nodded, finding a small smile on his face. "I know." he said softly. "I know." He allowed his hands to slip from her shoulders down to her wrists and stopped for a moment, thinking back to that night in hell when they had been strapped down, holding her to that table in front of him, when he had raised that knife to her. But he shook the thoughts from his head. He couldn't face them, not there. Not yet. "Come on," He pushed himself up from the hood of the Impala and forced a wider smile. "We'll head to Bobby's, find Sammy. We're gonna be fine. I know it."

With that, he rested an arm around her shoulders, tightly holding her against his side, and she didn't protest. There was a considerably smaller space between them as they climbed back into the stolen car, and they smiled at each other as he started the engine.

They were okay.

They had made it.

Things were okay again.

* * *

_Okay, I think that's it, anything that comes after this would pretty much just be the beginning of season four. _

_So thank you so much for reading and for your reviews/favourites/follows! _

_Hope you enjoyed! :)_


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